Category: Taxes

“ObamaCare doesn’t reduce medical costs under even the rosiest of scenarios (that is, projections that take seriously all its creators’ assumptions). What we can be certain of is that this legislation increases the amount of money taxpayers will be forced by law to pay for health insurance to the tune of $420 billion over the next 10 years. Claims about ObamaCare’s deficit-reduction effects depend on new taxes growing even faster than new spending. Despite the persistent claims of Peter Orszag and other defenders of the president’s health care legislation, ObamaCare has nothing to do with cutting costs.”

“It is true that the tax credits will reduce the effective premium that many households will face for health insurance coverage. However, the key question from a policy perspective is whether the benefits of the Obamacare tax credits outweigh their costs. Since the Families USA report failed to list any of the costs or concerns of the Obamacare tax credits, Heritage will fill the void.”

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will cause significant harm to an economy already reeling from a significant recession. A new report from Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John Barrasso (R-WY), both physicians, draws attention to just this issue.”

ObamaCare’s deficit reductions are unlikely to pan out, and the tax hikes will be worse than anticipated when you account for their economic effects. “Indeed, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is chock full of tax hikes. And those taxes will cost more than you might think.”

“But despite seven decades of stretching by a Supreme Court eager to accommodate every congressional whim, the Amazing Elastic Commerce Clause is still not expansive enough to cover the unprecedented command that people purchase a product from a private company in exchange for the privilege of existing.”

“In his ruling, Vinson criticized Democrats for seeking to have it both ways when it comes to defending the mandate to buy insurance. During the legislative debate, Republicans chastised the proposal as a new tax on the middle class. Obama defended the payment as a penalty and not a tax, but the Justice Department has argued that legally, it’s a tax.”

“A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ruled that challenges to the healthcare reform law’s individual mandate and its Medicaid expansion can proceed. The widely expected ruling does not mean that Florida Northern District Senior Judge Roger Vinson agrees that the law is unconstitutional, only that the arguments against it can’t be dismissed out of hand as the Obama administration had requested.”

“A federal judge on Thursday ruled that a lawsuit against the new health care law brought by 20 states led by Florida can go forward. In a 65-page ruling, the judge rejected the Obama administration’s attempt to have the suit thrown out, arguing that the states had a ‘plausible claim’ to challenge the law’s constitutionality. While U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson dismissed some of the states’ claims, he sided with them when it came to the central challenge to the law — that forcing individuals to purchase health insurance exceeds the government’s authority under the Commerce Clause.”

“This paper estimates PPACA will impose an additional, hidden cost of $157 billion to $494 billion in the form of reduced economic output. Related provisions (such as the so-called ‘doc fix’) could drive the economic losses to $550 billion, or more than half of the bill’s official cost estimates. Failing to account for this hidden tax multiplier biases legislative decisions toward more costly policies.”